(Originally posted December 12, 2025. Updated Dec. 27)
NOTE: Thank you to the Opelousas Police Department for releasing a statement of warning and guidance for the public on their Facebook page that was shared as an online story by KLFY TV in Lafayette. The St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to my email and prepared a Crimestoppers video admonishing people not to shoot guns in celebration and to report occurrences. Kudos to both agencies, but they need to create shareable links on their main webpages. The Sheriff’s page has no News or Press Release option in its menus, and OPD is similarly lacking in easy-to-find, shareable press releases.
Meanwhile, stupid people firing guns know no bounds. I’ll update this section with this year’s stories as I find them. See more information and stories at the end of this post under For more information.
December 26: Oklahoma man doing target practice in his backyard accused of fatally shooting woman blocks away
For 35 years, I’ve been doing a job I hate, a job I shouldn’t be doing, a job that rightfully belongs to someone else—one that, because it deals with the most predictable crime of the year, should be part of our public health, safety, and justice systems: warning the offenders, appealing to the public, monitoring the responses, and tallying the bullets fired in celebration on New Year’s Eve. Here we are again, on the brink of another New Year, and the public safety systems of Acadiana are not fully engaged.
I really don’t want to do this job; it’s sad to know that every holiday season, I’ll spend time popping everyone’s happy holiday bubble by explaining how one shot fired in celebration can destroy an innocent life, miles away. But that’s exactly how it happens.
In the first minutes of 1994 in New Orleans, as fireworks lit the sky over the river, a bullet fired in celebration from who knows where smashed through the top of the skull of Amy Silberman, a young publishing professional from Boston, killing her instantly. Here is her friend’s eyewitness account.
How happy she must’ve been, celebrating the New Year in the City of Dreams. For her friends and family, that moment of joy was instantly transformed into a nightmare because of a stupid fool firing a gun for fun. It’s sickening to reimagine the horror of her friends, the shock and pain of her family, and how their trauma resurfaced every New Year for the rest of their lives. But every year, that’s what I think about and why I’m writing. It doesn’t assuage my trauma to do this.
For two years prior, I warned that such a horrible thing would happen, and my pleas fell on mostly deaf ears. I tried to get local media to recognize that a story needed telling. I called the popular radio talk show, the local news media, the police. Until Amy died, nobody took me seriously.
That morning, when I woke up to the news (and the media that had ignored me in the prior weeks flocked to my doorstep with microphones and cameras), it was one of the worst days of my life. I cannot describe the helplessness and shame that washed over me as I felt responsible for failing to raise awareness and spark action. That feeling haunts me as I write this and see the same thing happening here.
I’ve spent half of my adult life warning that falling bullets kill. And I have seen in New Orleans how consistent public messaging, civic leadership, and community reporting can reduce this most predictable crime. In the years after Amy’s death, we lowered the gunfire rate by more than 70 percent. By 2000, the effort was so effective that I stopped recording shots altogether because so few were happening. It took a coalition of families, faith leaders, police, media, and citizens to make that happen.
Since 2023, I’ve lived in Opelousas, and I’m hearing the same chaos I experienced in New Orleans decades ago, compressed into a smaller city with far fewer people, yet with a much higher rate of gunfire per capita than in some of America’s largest cities.
Because so few people believed me and treated me like Chicken Little, in 1991, I began counting gunshots. That first year, I counted more than 1,500. I counted more than 3,300 shots in an hour and a half the night Amy Silberman died. I heard more in some of the years before.
Last New Year’s Eve, from my home near South City Park, I counted nearly 400 shots in only thirty minutes, with 300 fired in a ten-minute window between 11:58 p.m. and 12:08 a.m. That is a rate of 30 shots per minute — the equivalent of a small town turning into a free-fire zone every New Year’s.
For perspective, consider this: New Orleans, a city 23 times larger, now averages under 500 shots across the whole city on New Year’s Eve. Adjusted for population, Opelousas now experiences nearly 20 times more celebratory gunfire per resident than New Orleans ever did, even at its worst. Per square mile of audible area, Opelousas’ gunfire density is more intense than Kansas City, Washington D.C., or Oakland.
This is not a little problem in a small town. This is one of the highest per-capita rates of celebratory gunfire in America — and it is happening right here, in Opelousas neighborhoods, above Opelousas homes, and over Opelousas children.
It only takes one bullet to kill. I have said that line countless times, and I mean it literally. One shot. One angle. One moment of stupidity. We don’t get a second chance.
Why This Keeps Happening
Celebratory gunfire is not a “gun control issue.” It is a self-control issue. It is also one of the most predictable crimes in the world. Midnight. Every time zone. Every year. And yet, we still treat it as though nothing can be done. That is false — dangerously false.
What We Learned in New Orleans
New Orleans didn’t change because people magically became responsible. It changed because the community mobilized: civic leaders, the mayor, the NOPD, regional media, churches, neighborhood groups, and most importantly, ordinary citizens
We flooded the city each December with a simple message: Falling Bullets Kill! Citizens were urged to call it in. Report what you hear. Do not let this pass as “tradition.” People listened. The numbers fell; lives were saved. Here’s a link to a poster we created that told stories of people impacted by celebratory gunfire.
What Opelousas Must Do Now
If citizens do not report gunfire, there is little that the government and law enforcement can do. Opelousas cannot wait for the sheriff or the police department to solve this on their own. Every one of us must participate.
Here is what you can do — starting this year:
1. Call 911 when you hear gunfire.
Don’t assume someone else will do it. Don’t wait until it’s over. If you know the street, address, or the general direction, say so.
2. Talk to your neighbors before New Year’s Eve.
Let them know you’re calling in any shots you hear. Let the word spread that Opelousas is not looking the other way.
3. Share the message:
Falling Bullets Kill! One shot can end a life. Every bullet fired has an innocent destination.
4. Demand that our civic, religious, and neighborhood leaders speak up and take a stand.
This is not political. This is not controversial. This is basic public safety. (The sheriff of Caddo Parish stepped up in 2024.)
5. Demand that city and parish officials treat this as a real, annual public safety event.
It is predictable. It is preventable. And the plan should be announced every year, well before December 31.
What We Cannot Do
We cannot wait for tragedy. We cannot pretend this is normal. We cannot let another community bury a child, a visitor, or a passerby because someone wanted a few seconds of thrill and noise.
A Community Resolution
Let’s make a resolution — as a city, as a parish, and as neighbors:
This year, Opelousas will not accept a rain of bullets as the price of celebrating the New Year. We can fix this. And with enough voices, enough reporting, enough public pressure, and enough community resolve, we can make sure that Opelousas begins 2026 with something it has not had in years:
A truly safe and happy New Year.
For more information:
A Bullet and the Story of New Orleans’s Dangerous New Year’s Celebrations: A bullet found in an HNOC couryard sheds light on a Nwe Year’s Eve tradition with a deadly history (Historic New Orleans Collection, December 30, 2019
Falling bullet goes through boy’s face on New Year’s Eve (WWL TV, New Orleans, January 2, 2022)
A dangerous tradition: retrospective analysis of celebratory gunfire-related injuries in three tertiary hospitals (NIH, research in Turkey) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11065979/
Past incidents show falling bullets can still kill or injure someone (South Bend Tribune, July 2, 2025)
What goes up, must come down: The dangers of celebratory gunfire (Baylor College of Medicine, December 31, 2019)
Virginia boy’s death from falling bullet prompts search for culprit, scrutiny of celebratory gunfire (AL.com, Aug. 10, 2013. July 4 incident, shows how the problem is not limited to one holiday season.)
NOLAmotion Blog 